EA's biggest retail partner last quarter was Apple

Apple has historically never been a company terribly concerned with gaming. That all changed, however, when the App Store was launched and iOS, in the blink of an eye, became one of the more popular gaming platforms in the world.

Highlighting the increasing importance of the iOS platform to gaming, EA executive Frank Gibeau recently said in an interview with VentureBeat that EA generated more revenue via Apple in the last three months than it did with any other partner.

The quarter was a bit of an anomaly because we didn't put out any blockbuster console titles, but our biggest retail partner, measured by dollar volume, in Q1 was not Best Buy or GameStop. It was Apple.

EA CEO Peter Moore said during EA's conference call that this marked the first time Apple "was EA's biggest retail partner as measured by sales."

Some of the more popular EA titles which helped contribute to EA's overall bottom line included The Simpsons: Tapped Out, The Sims Freeplay and Real Racing 3, which has been downloaded over 45 million times since first launching this past March.

All told, EA generated US$90 million from smartphone and tablet titles, but the company refused to break down what percentage of that $90 million was attributable to iOS.